The
Other Side of the Pacific:
A Few Statistics and Observations on Shakuhachi Playing in Japan and
in Kochi Prefecture

In this article, I’d like to look at some fairly recent statistics on
the number of shakuhachi players in Japan and also provide a few details about
shakuhachi playing in Kochi prefecture, one of the four prefectures on the
island of Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s four main islands. There
was some interesting demographic information on the Japanese bamboo flute
provided in an article entitled “Shakuhachi No Ima” (The Shakuhachi
Now), in volume184 (May 2002) of Hogaku Journal, a Japanese language journal
dedicated to Japanese traditional music. In this article, by Ohashi Taizan,
the owner of Hoseido, a traditional Japanese music shop in Tokyo, the total
number of shakuhachi players in Japan was estimated as being about 40,000;
the number listed as playing Japanese traditional classical music (koten)
was given as 28,000, and the number of Minyo (folk music) shakuhachi players
was estimated as 16,000. In the breakdown of shakuhachi players registered
as koten players, the number of Tozan players in Japan was estimated to be
about 14,000, the number of Kinko players as about 6,000, and the number of
players from other shakuhachi guilds (for example, Chikuho, Ueda, or Meian)
at about 2000. These numbers were contrasted with the estimates of the numbers
of shakuhachi players from ten years earlier, in 1992, when the total number
of players registered with the various guilds was estimated at 60,000, with
a breakdown of 28,000 koten players (17,000 Tozan and 8,000 Kinko) and 32.000Minyo
players.

The article also included statistics concerning
the number of players who had taken shoden, or the beginning rank, in shakuhachi
in the year 2002 (a level which could perhaps be compared with the shodan,
or first degree black belt rank in the martial arts, which one usually tests
for in Japan after a year or two of consistent training);the shoden rank in
some branches of Kinko may be awarded after the student demonstrates the ability
to play a certain repertoire of gaikyoku pieces. The number of those listed
as having taken shoden rank in the Tozan ryu in 2002 was 227. This was contrasted
to the 2500 Tozan players who were given shoden in 1935, cited as the year
when the Tozan guild was at its peak.. About seventy percent of shoden takers
were said to go on to at least the jun shihan rank, the first license permitting
one to teach shakuhachi (and which may take up to about six years to achieve).

Tozan Players in Japan
in 2002 who took shoden: 227Shoden takers in 1935: 2500

Shakuhachi Players
in Japan in 2002 with a shihan (master’s) license: 5700

In 2002, 5700 shakuhachi players
in Japan were listed as holding the shihan or master’s rank. This list
included players in the main Tozan group and in smaller organizations such as
Tozan Gakkai, and Shin Tozan, as well as players from the Kinko and other shakuhachi
guilds. According to the author, under the Kinko banner there are maybe seventy,
eighty, or even a hundred separate groups, some of which may have less than
ten members . Many foreign players of shakuhachi may know of the guild Chikuyusha,
headed by Kawase Junsuke, or Chikumeisha, which was formerly headed by National
Living Treasure Yamaguchi Goro, or perhaps have even heard of Domon Kai, but
how many are familiar with branches of Kinko such as Seiyusha, Muraji, Kozan,
Yozan, Bifukai, Ikoma, Kimpu, Seizan, Kikusui, Shofu, or Shikishima?
Ten years ago there were about 60,000 shakuhachi players registered with various
ryuha; today the number is only about 40,000, down by a third in just a decade.
According to the author, the last ten years were lean years for fulltime shakuhachi
teachers in Japan, as it was difficult for them to recruit enough students to
be able to support themselves financially, and he predicts the next decade will
be even harder for those people trying to make a living teaching shakuhachi
in Japan as teachers are getting older, learners of shakuhachi are fewer, and
one area of music, that of minyo, or Japanese folk music, has suffered a radical
drop in the number of players, down by almost half in the last decade. But even
as the writer notes that some people in the shakuhachi world tend to have a
pessimistic outlook in regard to the instrument’s future in Japan, he
states that there are a number of reasons for optimism, noting that from the
year 2002, students in Japanese elementary and junior high schools have been
required to have at least a minimal exposure to Japanese traditional music,
and that students in most public schools are now participating in at least a
few classes of Japanese hogaku before graduation. Also, according to Ohashi,
there are many more proficient teachers of shakuhachi than there were just a
generation ago, and many of them teach at community centers and other venues
throughout Japan (sometimes without charging fees, he states). He says that
Japanese people in general have more free time to pursue a hobby or interest
than in the past, and this will hopefully lead to an increase in the number
of people taking up traditional music. Another important reason for optimism
in regard to the future of shakuhachi is that in what was formerly considered
as a man’s activity, the number of woman players has increased tenfold.
As an example, he notes that now more than ten percent of shoden ranked players
in the Tozan ryu are women. And lastly, he mentions the significant increase
in the number of foreign players of the instrument over the last few decades.

Shakuhachi Players in Shikoku

Here in Shikoku, the majority
of Kinko players are members of Junsuke Kawase’s Chikuyusha, but we have
several players from the above listed Bifukai here in Kochi City, and people
who have studied with other branches such as the Araki lineage. The Kinko group
I belong to, Chikudosha, is a fairly large group in Japan, with perhaps about
300 active members in the country. It is based mostly in the Kanto (Tokyo) area
but has one branch here in Shikoku in Kochi Prefecture, with a local membership
of about ten players, ranging in age from 22 to 78. Chikudosha is a branch of
the Notomi Judo lineage and the two leading players in the guild are professional
shakuhachi players living in Tokyo and Yokohama. Fuji Jidou, the head of the
guild, is a maker of shakuhachi as well as being a teacher and performer.

In Kochi prefecture, the main
body of shakuhachi, shamisen, and koto players are members of the Kochi Sankyoku
Kyokai (the prefectural organization of koto, shamisen, and shakuhachi players)
which has a little over a hundred members, perhaps a little more than a third
of whom are shakuhachi players. Just a decade ago there were about three hundred
members in Kochi prefecture’s Sankyoku Kyokai so the number of players
appears to have dropped by a third and even though some elderly members may
have passed on or stopped playing, the drop does not show necessarily show a
large decline in players as a number of members have split off from the official
group and continue to play and hold concerts separate from the prefectural group.

To be a member of the prefectural
organization one must already have at minimum a junshihan license granted by
a recognized guild so there are some players who are members of a shakuhachi
guild but who have not achieved the junshihan rank, or those who have gone through
the ranks but are not interested in taking the license or cannot afford to pay
the exorbitant license fees, as well as those who would rather learn the instrument
outside the guild system (college students, for example), which like organizations
for other traditional art forms in Japan such as ikebana and sado (flower arrangement
and tea ceremony), is expensive, with license fees and other costs -- such as
fees required to play in formal concerts at rented halls (which can vary depending
on the number of pieces played and the number of players performing a piece),
in addition to the monthly lesson fees. Officially there are 52 licensed Tozan
players in Kochi prefecture and probably less than half that number of licensed
Kinko players. There are several koto players in Kochi who have large numbers
of students and make a living through teaching koto and shamisen, but there
are no professional shakuhachi players currently residing in the prefecture.

Looking in more detail at our local shakuhachi group, Kochi’s branch of
Chikudosha, the shakuhachi master, Ikezoe Kyodo, teaches lessons two evenings
a week – students can attend both evenings if they wish; the sensei is
available for lessons from about 6:00 in the evening to about 11:00 p.m. Students
who arrive first generally take their lessons first. Some students play their
one piece with the sensei and then leave while others sit quietly and drink
tea while watching the other students practice, talking with the sensei and
other students during the breaks between pieces. Shihan Ikezoe Kyodo has been
playing the shakuhachi for about thirty years, since his early twenties, and
only teaches the koten pieces, both gaikyoku and honkyoku. During their lessons,
students sit in seiza (kneeling position) facing the sensei across a small table,
where the music notation for the piece the student is learning is placed; the
sensei reads the student’s music notation upside down (no small feat!).
Ikezoe Kyodo studied the shakuhachi several years in Hokkaido, and then some
years in the Kanto area with Fuji Judo and Suzuki Shodo, both of whom had been
students of National Living Treasure, Notomi Judo before receiving his master’s
license and starting up a branch of the Chikudosha guild in Kochi. Students
pay minimal fees for the shakuhachi lessons, just paying for the tea, as the
sensei works full time as a komuin, or government employee.

The membership in our local shakuhachi
group has fluctuated between about six and ten players over the last seventeen
years. We’ve had a total of seven foreign players over those years, from
the U.S.A, Canada, and Romania. Currently there are two of us here from the
United States. Our local group has one yearly recital in December with koto
and shamisen players --this past year was our 16th-- and at times members from
our local Chikudosha branch join other shakuhachi, shamisen, and koto players
for events, especially in the spring and fall, including the bi-annual prefectural
Japanese traditional music concerts.

We recently had our yearly spring
concert of the Sankyoku Kyokai on May 15th of this year, in the smaller of the
two prefectural halls, which seats 500, which was packed to full capacity this
year and featured special shakuhachi guest Christopher Yohmei Blasdel along
with professional koto players Erina Matsumura and Curtis Patterson, all down
from the Tokyo area. Various local groups joined this concert and the local
players got to showcase their talents in pieces they had been working on since
the beginning of the year In recent years past, other well known Japanese shakuhachi
players such as Fujiwara Dozan, Kawamura Taizan, and Nakamura Akikazu have guested
in the spring concerts here.

There seems to be a slight upswing
in the number of young players of college age over the last couple of years
here in this prefecture. Three colleges in the prefecture have Japanese traditional
music clubs, and several students at my university have also expressed an interest
in trying to get a club going. At one of the college clubs, that of Kochi University,
women students predominate, though the number of student players of shakuhachi
in the prefecture is probably less than twenty. Despite the increase of woman
players in general, the Kochi Sankyoku Kyokai, or official prefectural organization
for traditional Japanese music as yet has no female shakuhachi players (there
are a few male players of koto in the prefecture, predominantly children). Tozan
and Kinko players often play separately at the prefectural events, but sometimes
play on stage together when accompanying shamisen and koto at traditional music
concerts and Tozan players, performers from several Kinko branches, and many
shamisen and koto players all joined with shakuhachi soloist Christopher Yohmei
Blasdel and the two special koto guests from Tokyo for a rousing rendition of
the local minyo piece Yosakoi Bushi at the end of the prefectural traditional
Japanese music organization’s annual spring concert in May of this year.